THE KILLER COP STORY WE NEVER HEAR: Hedge Fund Manager Shot for Suspected Sale of Fraudulent Derivatives

Goldman Sachs executive Oliver Dauphin was shot and killed today when he failed to respond to questioning by a police officer.

Dauphin was waiting for his limo at the curb outside the Bhutan Grill when police officer Damon Johnson overheard him on the phone, selling what sounded like a rent based derivative.

"I knew how much damage those mortgage back derivatives did to our economy and the world, so I wanted to ask some questions to find out if they were solid or another pump and dump fraud like the mortgage backed derivatives," said Johnson.

Johnson instructed Dauphin to hang up, so he could ask his questions, but Dauphin ignored him and walked a few feet away.

Johnson followed and took his phone out of his hand, ending his call.

Dauphin tried to grab his phone back, and Johnson said, "not until you answer some questions."

Dauphin became enraged and said, "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? I'm the guy who's going to get you fired. I'm going to make your life a living hell. You're dead!"

Johnson took his last statement as a threat, drew his revolver, and told Dauphin to put his hands on his head.

Rather than comply, Dauphin made a dismissive noise and reached inside his jacket.

Fearing that he may have been reaching for a weapon, Johnson opened fire, hitting Dauphin three times in the chest and once in the head.

A later search of his body found no weapon, only a wallet and a cigar.

Others in the finance industry were shocked by the shooting and demanded that the officer be fired or at least put on suspension pending an investigation.

The police chief said he had no plans to do so since the officer acted within department policy.

"A suspect wearing a long heavy coat like that could be hiding a shotgun, assault rifle or grenade launcher for all we know, so given his movements, the shooting was appropriate. Police officers deal with very dangerous people in this neighborhood who have been known to rob pension funds, bankrupt local and state governments, and even countries with their fraud. Given that threat, Officer Johnson acted appropriately."

He also said that a cigar had been stolen from a nearby bodega and it was very likely the officer could smell the tobacco. Johnson did not mention this in any of his own statements though.

Iraq Demands United States form a more inclusive government

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, expressing 

dismay at failure of US democracy

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki spoke for his parliament and cabinet today when he urged the United States to form a more inclusive government that was responsive to more than just the minority of extremely wealthy individuals.

"Polls show less than half of Americans approve of President Obama's performance, record public distrust of the US Congress, and little change economic, trade, budget, tax, and foreign policy regardless of which of the two major parties is in control of the White House or Congress," said Maliki.

"Further, recent studies have shown that American politicians are far more responsive to wealthy donors and past and future employers or business cronies than they are to their constituents even when what the wealthy want conflicts with the wishes of their constituents or actually harms them," he added.

"Therefore, for the stability of the United States and because of the effect their large economy and military presence has on the rest of the world, we ask that they dissolve their government and reconstitute a "salvation government"  that is more inclusive of the vast majority and their economic interests and diminishes the influence of money in policy-making, whether through the inclusion of smaller parties or establishing means of direct democracy at the national level or whatever it takes," he concluded.

Maliki went on to say that the United States could learn from Iraq's mistakes before the US suffers an insurgency of its own.

Maliki could not resist ending on an ironic note. 

"You know, the US could even learn a thing or two about democracy from us. The American people wanted to end their government's occupation of Iraq almost as much as Iraqis did.   The Iraqi government responded appropriately, negotiating for the withdrawal of foreign troops, while the US negotiated fiercely to keep troops in the country and now looks for a way to reintroduce them, despite 72% of Americans saying the war was not worth it.  If you think that's democracy, then Iraq still has some hidden WMD's I'd like to sell you."

selfish reasons for Americans to worry about what happens to Russia

It seems that since the end of the Cold War, the financial elite have become more brazen in screwing the middle and working class (and even a lot of the rich) and buying politicians more openly to help them do so.

They may have been more circumspect in the past because for all its flaws, communism would look more attractive to Europeans and Americans if we were still treated the way we were in the robber baron era, and while the Soviet Union was a going concern, it would look like a realistic rather than hypothetical option.

So we got the original "Third Way" between capitalism and socialism, smoothing the corners and rough edges off capitalism enough that people didn't think too much about alternatives.

Once the Soviet Union was gone, the financial elite seem to believe Francis Fukuyama's pronouncement that it was the end of history and they had won. Without an alternative for people to look to, the Third Way became three-quarters of the way to fascism and back to the era of Charles Dickens--smoothing the edges off capitalism was too expensive when the rich could just keep the tax money that costs in their pocket, and then privatize any surviving government services, so the tax dollars that are collected end up back in their hands.

If that is how they treat us now, regardless of whether you think Putin is a nice guy, do you think the financial elite are going to treat us any better once they don't even have Russia as a major REGIONAL obstacle?

If they replace every government that doesn't do business on terms the IMF, World Bank, Wall St, oil companies and the like dictate, is that going to make life any better for the rest of us?

When the sun never set on the British Empire, far from helping the folks back in England, those were the darkest days of the Industrial Revolution, when men, women, and children worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

Have our lives gotten any better since we've gone from one of two superpowers to the SOLE superpower in the world?

If not why should we expect to get any better if the continue to isolate Russia and take away their oil and gas business until they become a super-sized Somalia?

Previous post on Russia post-Cold War

Obama sends Bush to teach Syria how to kill civilians legally

Syrian President Bashir Assad being advised
by former American President George W. Bush

In a last ditch effort to avoid air strikes and cruise missile attacks on Syria,
President Barack Obama has deployed former President George W Bush as a special envoy to instruct Syrian President Bashir Assad on the how to kill civilians without committing war crimes.

"No one alive knows more about this than former President Bush," Obama said. "He has by some estimates, authorized the killing of over a million Iraqi men, women, and children and untold tens of thousands of Afghans--all without committing war crimes or human rights violations. That's why I gave him immunity for actions taken in those wars just the other day."

Bush had already arrived in Syria and begun what he called his "Cheneying" of the young president of Syria.

He took a brief break to explain the advice he's giving Assad in an exclusive interview with Fox News.

"See, first thing I told him is we're the deciders.  We decide what's the right way to kill terrorists.  And that's the first step.  Only kill terrorists.  And they can come in any gender or age or sexual oriented minority."

The Fox interviewer Chris Wallace asked if he advised Assad against the use of chemical weapons.

"Of course I did! That's the first thing I said! There's nothing more bad than killing someone with a gas that leaves their body mostly intact.  I told him a real leader uses weapons that blows them bodies into pieces and buries them in rubble so it takes their relatives a while to find them and put them back together."

"See when they're busy doing that, they can't be terroristing as much."

"So explosives are the only weapons that are moral?" Wallace asked.

"I never said that," Bush bristled.  "We got stuff that can burn people to death. Inside and out at the same time.  And they can't put it out even in water.  They just kinda run around like a Bugs Bunny cartoon till they run out of juice, heh heh."

"You can also take them out one at a time Old West style with good old bullets even if you have to do it from a helicopter to get more of them like reporters and kids trying to help terrorists we're in the middle of killing."

Wallace asked if killing, even if limited to these legal methods, won't generate more enemies for the Assad regimes.

"You know I don't really think about that.  But if you think that's a problem, you can bring some people in and ask them how they feel about your leadership.  Sometimes you have to use special 'enhanced' interrogation methods we've developed like waterboarding to get an honest answer out of them."

"Don't those methods sometimes lead to additional deaths?" Wallace asked.

"Not that I know of.  I mean not people that wouldn't lose their life later anyway."

Wallace said there may be some limits to how Bush's experience could apply to Syria since President Assad is killing his own people and Bush was killing people on the other side of the world.

"Chris, that's what's great about America. We know how other people need to do things even if we haven't done it ourselves yet."

WHITE HOUSE PETITION: fully pardon Bradley Manning

There probably are and will be more of these various places, but posting one on the White House website makes it harder for them to say haven't seen it, and for others who stumble across it on their site, it will be like a scarlet letter.

Who knows, it might even force Obama to act.

SIGN HERE & pass it on to your friends.

FULL TEXT OF PETITION:

Pardon Bradley Manning and reduce his sentence to time served. 

His 35 year sentence is greater than that given to uniformed members of the military who tortured or massacred civilians, and typically got ten years and served far less. 

The Bush admin lied about their case for war led to the deaths of thousand of troops and a million Iraqis but weren't even tried. 

A prosecution witness in the Manning trial said NO deaths resulted from his leaks. 

Manning's leaks exposed war crimes and helped spark the Arab Spring democracy movement. 

The only "damage" he did was to the ability of our government to lie to our people about the means and motives of our foreign policy. 

Clean up the corruption and moral squalor in corridors of power in Washington instead of punishing the person who exposed it. 

SIGN HERE

NSA launches lip reading drones in United States

New leaks reveal for the first time that the NSA is using drones to spy on in person conversations within the United States.  Predator drones are taping all conversation outdoors and many indoors observable through windows not blocked by drapes or blinds.

An unnamed high-ranking official in the Obama administration said average Americans should not be concerned about their privacy being invaded.

“We’re just collecting meta-data,” the official said, adding, “like who is talking to who, where, and when, and the general tone of the conversation, you know, whether it’s friendly, business-like, or furtive. We’re certainly not recording the content of the conversations.”

Critics of the program have disputed this, noting that the NSA has advertised in many deaf publications for lip readers to serve as analysts.

The Obama administration has responded that lip-reading of the actual content of conversations will only be done when there is suspicion of a terrorist activity, like non-violent protests of tar sand pipelines or further Occupy protests of financial crimes on Wall Street.

The administration official said the lip reading program will be discontinued once their acoustic sensors are able to isolate individual conversations from background noise.

They had no comment on why the drones were armed.

Guatemala Chamber of Commerce says genocide conviction "will will discourage foreign investment"

Forensic anthropologist, 

remains of genocide victim, 

possible relatives of victim

Democracy Now has been covering the genocide trial of U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, but more damning than any details of any atrocity are the reactions of the business community and what it reveals about how they use governments like Montt's, not just in the past but today.

Most macabre is the recent quote by security guards at a mine who said protesters didn't realize that the mine "generates jobs" (a Republican talking point) before they opened fire on the protesters.

Most people don't care  or even know about communism, socialism, free market fundamentalism, or whatever. They just want decent working conditions, to be able to take care of their family, and have their employer subject to the rule of law if they don't provide the other two.

That is obviously intolerable to corporations in their dealings in the Third World--and increasingly in America and the developed world.

Eventually Americans are going to realize that the companies they work for see us the same way they do Bangladeshi garment workers and Indian miners in Guatemala, and we will change things.

If not, look forward to being buried in rubble during of sixteen hour shift or being shot for not respecting "job creators" in the near future.

EXCERPT:

One of the remarks that Pérez Molina made in response to the verdict against Ríos Montt—he was echoing the comments of the American Chamber of Commerce, which represents the U.S. corporations in Guatemala—was to say that this verdict will discourage foreign investment in Guatemala. It’s a very revealing comment, because foreign companies, when they come into a country and are looking to invest, they want some laws to be enforced, like the laws on contracts, and they want other laws not to be enforced, like the labor laws and the laws which stop them from murdering their employees if they try to organize unions. In the ’80s, the leaders of the American Chamber of Commerce described to me how they would sometimes turn over names of troublesome workers to the security forces, and they would then disappear or be assassinated. Fred Sherwood was one of the Chamber of Commerce leaders who described that. And now, with this verdict, it seems that Pérez Molina and the corporate leaders and the elites in Guatemala, in general, are worried that they may have a harder time killing off workers and organizers when they need to.
And it’s especially relevant right now because there’s a huge conflict in Guatemala about mining. American and Canadian mining companies are being brought in by the Pérez Molina government to exploit silver and other minerals. The local communities are resisting. Community organizers have been killed. There was a clash in which a police officer was killed. So Pérez Molina has imposed a state of siege in various parts of the country. And just the other day, the local press printed a wiretap transcript of the head of security at one of these mines, in this case the San Rafael mining operation, where the security chief says to his men, regarding demonstrators who were outside the mine, he says, "Goddamn dogs, they do not—they do not understand that the mine generates jobs. We must eliminate these animal pieces of . We cannot allow people to establish resistance. Kill those sons of ." And the security people later opened fire. This is the way foreign companies operate, not just in Guatemala, but around the world. I mean, it’s this kind of non-enforcement of law that made possible the Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over a hundred workers. And now they’re worried in Guatemala—

FULL TEXT 

Following NRA lead, Republicans now ban gun-toting action stars from party

Republican House Speaker John Boehner at press
conference ousting gun-toting action stars 

Republican House speaker John Boehner announced at a press conference today that the Republican Party would no longer accept campaign donations, acknowledge endorsements from,  promote as candidates, use as spokesmodels, or invite as guests on Fox News any celebrities who make movies or TV shows that glorify gun violence.

This followed quickly on the heels on NRA President Wayne LaPierre's press conference that said in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, "Guns don't kill people, TV shows and movies kill people."

"The evidence that media violence  on TV and in movies leads to violence in real life is overwhelming," Boehner said.  "Every single mass shooter that I know of has watched TV or been to a movie."

This represents a major policy shift for Republicans who have long touted the support of action stars like Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and the late Charlton Heston, all of whom have high on screen body counts.  The GOP even successfully ran action star Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor of California, who won in spite of his inability to pronounce the name of the state.

"We can no longer even indirectly endorse their glorification of violence," Boehner said. "Nor will we accept the support of directors or producers of shows  and movies that glorify violence or accurately portray wars like the War on Terror and tactics within that war that our party voted for."

Boehner said the shunning will also extend to candidates and donors  who profit from the sale and distribution of violent movies like Mitt Romney, whose Marriot Hotel investments profited from cable and pay per view movies featuring violence and other objectionable content.

Boehner was quick to point out that the ban does not extend to all celebrities.

"There is still plenty of room in our party for David Spade, Drew Carey, Britney Spears, Jeff Foxworthy, that ball buster chick from Law & Order, and that funny gay guy who is still in the closet. He just brings me to tears.  And he makes me laugh too."

Boehner said the excommunicated action stars would be welcomed back into the GOP if they promised to make only non-violent movies in the future.

"There are several other kinds of movies besides shoot 'em ups," he said. "Chick flicks, coming of age movies, disease movies, movies about freaks, retards, and well-behaved minorities, comedies and romantic comedies."

"You know even Arnold Schwarzenegger has made comedies like Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Junior, and the Austrian version of The Birdcage.  I for one would love to see him star in a remake of The Notebook before another Terminator movie, or a remake of that wonderful movie about his home country, The Sound of Music."

Boehner was asked about the status of Republican celebrities who make violent movies that do not use guns as weapons like Sarah Michelle Gellar, who as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, drove stakes in the hearts of innumerable vampires.

"Staking, stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning, garroting, drowning, smothering, those are all acceptable family entertainment," Boehner responded. "But the minute someone picks up a gun for anything other than hunting, shooting a burglar, or a person of color who makes you feel uneasy, a moral line has been crossed.  So, yes, Buffy is perfectly acceptable."

Boehner was asked how the Republican Party decided this was the correct response to the tragedy in Connecticut.

"We did a lot of soul searching," he said, "and a little bit of math.  We get a lot more money from the NRA than celebrities."

NOTE: Within hours of the press conference, the Television Manufacturers association released a statement saying to their knowledge, no one has been killed by the new flat panel TV's but only by the older, heavier tube sets that crushed some people. They added that those who still have tube TV's can get an excellent price on a flat panel model this holiday season.

PHOTO: Netanyahu passes Baby Bush, descends to Rocky & Bullwinkle level of evidence

CONTEXT OF PHOTO


I thought nothing could be lamer than the Bush mobile chemical weapons lab drawings as an excuse for a war but Netanyahu did it at the UN, with an illustration that wouldn't be convincing in a Saturday morning cartoon.

This is more likely to insult his audiences intelligence than persuade them of anything.


I think he's trying to say that if we do not act now, the moose and squirrel are in existential danger.



Note how accurate his drawing of the bomb is!

PREDICTION: the "HAVE YOU NO SHAME?" moment for capitalism

Our current form of capitalism is no longer based on real wealth of resources and manufacturing, but the investment and currency Ponzi schemes of the finance sector.

What it's probably going to take for people to realize this is some hedge fund to decide to goose their profits by cannibalizing a company we all like and even depend on.

It's not that far-fetched: they already do it to companies that are profitable--just not profitable enough to suit them.

It wasn't quite enough for most people that it was done to the dream of home ownership, or the ongoing assaults on a middle class standard of living, secure pensions and access to higher education.

Some icon of capitalism itself needs to be hobbled and torn to shreds by the jackals of Wall Street because a speadsheet showed it was far more profitable than merely investing in it and collecting dividends, or even running another pump and dump scam.

When we see what we idealize as capitalism killed by what it really is, maybe people will realize our biggest enemy isn't the last three hundred al Qaeda in Pakistan or the last three commies in North Korea, put the sociopathic trust fund babies on Wall Street who crush our dreams and make us work three minimum wage jobs to survive, so that their descendants won't have to get a job for the next ten generations.

Why power generators are terrified of solar--electricity 40% cheaper in SOLAR Germany

This is a pretty good indication of how our energy debate in America is driven by oil, gas, and coal public relations bullshit not reality.

While our government has been licking around the edges of alternative energy and politely nodding when oil company execs tell us it's not cost competitive yet, Germany has jumped into it in a big way.

The result?

The peak price of electricity over the course of a day dropped 40%, and 25% of their gas generators may be closed.

Why are we still talking about deep water drilling and pipelines for tar sand and shale oil, which are a half step above turning coal into gasoline? 


Because only big money can drill oil or turn asphalt into usable fuel, so they can control the supply and therefore price. Once PV's are in place, it's a hell of a lot harder to explain price fluctuations when the ''fuel,'' the sun rays, are constant.

Obama is doing more on this than past presidents, but we need to catch up to Germany, and the sooner we do, the less of a stranglehold big oil will have on our economy and foreign policy, and the harder it will be for power companies to blackmail us for billions and even turn out the lights as they did here in California at the beginning of the Bush administration.

We need to demand that our government get out in front, not just in research and demonstration projects, but in getting these kinds of power plants online and displacing fossil fuel NOW.

Tell the White House and your corrupt Congress critters to build it fast and build it NOW. 

EXCERPT:

The first graph illustrates what a typical day on the electricity market in Germany looked like in March four years ago; the second illustrates what is happening now, with 25GW of solar PV installed across the country. Essentially, it means that solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil fuel generators — as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of PV — it is in fact eating their entire cake.

Deutsche Bank solar analyst Vishal Shah noted in a report last month that EPEX data was showing solar PV was cutting peak electricity prices by up to 40%, a situation that utilities in Germany and elsewhere in Europe were finding intolerable. “With Germany adopting a drastic cut, we expect major utilities in other European countries to push for similar cuts as well,” Shah noted. 

 Analysts elsewhere said one quarter of Germany’s gas-fired capacity may be closed, because of the impact of surging solar and wind capacity. Enel, the biggest utility in Italy, which had the most solar PV installed in 2011, highlighted its exposure toreduced peaking prices when it said that a €5/MWh fall in average wholesale prices would translate into a one-third slump in earnings from the generation division.

SOURCE

Progressive talker Thom Hartmann punished for Rush & other cons' sins in LA?

Clear Channel wanted to diversify the range of voices on LA radio, especially in light of the Limbaugh dust up and KFI local hosts John & Ken's remarks referring to Whitney Houston as a ''crack ho'' after her death, but instead of replacing Limbaugh or the KFI locals, they bumped nationally known progressive talker Thom Hartmann. 

In one of the most liberal cities in America that has ONE progressive commercial station and a couple of conservative ones, and in which they own two AM stations and five FM ones. 

The Black Media alliance also noticed that the station that carries Rush has the highest ratings in the LA market, but it also has a very strong signal. The progressive station is static at a range where Rush is still coming in loud and clear. 

If Clear Channel really wants to do a mea culpa for Rush, they should replace HIM with this new show, or better yet, swap signals between their low powered progressive show and their stronger signal conservative one. 

It's also hard not to notice that Clear Channel is hardly making moves to make the progressive channel, KTLK 1150 AM more successful. They have gradually replaced nationally known progressives who could draw a large audience with little known hosts, David Cruz and Clark Howard from 3-8 pm, and now have done the same in the crucial morning slot. Come to think of it, if Clear Channel wanted to try out new hosts on KTLK, why bump someone who has a national audience, that even people from out of town might spin the dial to find, instead of bumping the late afternoon hosts that even loyal listeners of KTLK switch away from? 

Either Clear Channel doesn't care about listeners who started with the station when it was Air America and stayed with for the nationally known very progressive hosts ever since, or they are actively trying to kill the format so they could then say it failed and keeping Limbaugh in spite of near universal outrage.

Does this really sound like a free market at work or a corporation drawing blood from progressives to give a transfusion to a dying right wing propaganda format? 

Contact KTLK at Programming@KTLKAM1150.com 

And Clear Channel at publicrelations@clearchannel.com 

More Clear Channel contact info

Tell them to bring back Thom Hartmann to 9-12 am on KTLK AM 1150, and move Diverse LA to the later slots or better yet, to Rush Limbaugh or John and Ken's time slots on KFI AM 640!

Santorum wants prima nocta, nobles' right of wedding night sex, back

After his success energizing Republican voters with his attack on contraception, presidential candidate Rick Santorum has reached even deeper into traditional Catholic sexual edicts to add prima nocta, also known as droit du seigneur, the right of nobles to sexual relations with brides on their wedding nights, to his women's issues platform.

To underline his embrace of this tradition, Santorum announced it during a campaign event at Dark AJ's Medieval Dinner Park in Hannibal, Missouri, going as far as to dress in Middle Ages attire himself.

"You know our critics on the loony left often say they can't see how the Christian wing of the Republican Party can co-exist with the free market wing, as if there was some conflict of values between the two," Santorum began.

"But in the ancient tradition of prima nocta, these two wings become one beautiful bird, perfectly illustrating God's hierarchy for all living things, and the economic superior embodying God's love as he fills the inferior."

As Santorum spoke, the prima nocta scenes from movies like Braveheart and Beckett played in the background.

Since America has no formal nobility, Santorum said as president he will fight for a law to adapt the ancient droit du seigneur to become a droit du corporis, or right of the corporation.

The right could be exercised by the CEO, major shareholders, or board members of any corporation over recently married employees or customers indebted to the corporation through mortgages, credit card debt, or other consumer loans.

"What is really exciting is this could provide a new opportunity for the free market," Santorum continued.  "If the CEO or others legally granted the right choose not to exercise it, they could sell that right on a nocta market."

A reporter asked if  CEO's could also take the first night of gay spouses in states where gay marriage is legal.

Santorum thought for several minutes before saying, "I'll have to consult some trusted Vatican scholars before giving a definitive answer, but I can say as a Republican that so long as they do it in the closet, and at least one of them claims publicly to be straight, it's probably ok."

UPDATE: Seth McFarlane used his FAMILY GUY characters to create this educational video on prima nocta for Santorum.

ice cream shop names milkshake after Santorum

A Hershey, Pennsylvania ice cream shop owner came up with a novel way to support his favorite GOP presidential candidate: by creating a milkshake in his name.

Francis (Frank) Manuopus thought he should do more that plant a lawn sign to spread his support for Santorum, so he invented the Santorum Shake, made with double dutch chocolate (in honor of the Pennsylvania Dutch) and whipped cream because Santorum is "the cream of the crop" to Manuopus.

"If someone has never had the Santorum Shake, they absolutely MUST have a cherry on top," Manuopus added.

He has promoted it in various ways, such as selling it for 50% off if people ask for it at the far right end of the counter or who come in the back door.

He said the shake has proven popular, especially with the town's gay community.

"With Rick's stand on gay rights, you wouldn't think they'd be interested, but they have been flooding in, saying they want to taste Santorum.  Sometimes they are really surprised how good it  is.  One even said Santorum tastes a lot better cold.  I guess some gave him one that had melted to room temperature.  That would be too runny for my taste," Manuopus said.

Manuopus said he isn't sure that all the gays who come in are Santorum supporters though.

"One group came in and one of the guys looked sort of like Rick and even wore a sweater vest.  The other three bought Santorum shakes, sucked them up into straws, and blew it on the one dressed like Rick.  They were good sports and cleaned it up though.  They said they didn't want anyone to slip in their Santorum."

Manuopus was especially proud that his parish priest came in and tried the shake. "I was really surprised. The priest said he has made this for boys in the rectory lots of times, but never actually tried it."

He hopes the candidate himself will get a taste of his own Santorum before the Pennsylvania primary.  "Nothing would make me prouder than seeing Rick wiping my Santorum off his face," Manuopus beamed.

UPDATE: Always a good sport, Newt Gingrich came in for a Santorum Shake when he was in town.  He brought his own whipped cream and offered to share it with all the ladies in the shop.  


"Frankly, I used to enjoy sharing this with my wife, but now it's more fun to give it to women I've just met," he explained.

Do Businessmen Make Good Presidents? Public Radio sidesteps Bush/Cheney answer

When I heard the host of Public Radio International's The World ask whether businessmen make good presidents and continue with,

But does business experience give a head of state a leg up? And why does a nation turn to a CEO for leadership?

CONTEXT 

I assumed they were going to go for the obvious recent example in American history: George W. Bush and his Halliburton CEO VP, Dick Cheney.

Instead, the story went on to talk about Vicente Fox, a president of Thailand, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, and even non-president, Donald Trump.

As odd as the absence of Bush and Cheney was the absence of a very obvious question: do businessmen in office use their skills for the public good, or do they simply use the office to help their business and cronies who will reciprocate later? I'm sure their are lots of the first kind, but far more often, businessmen see public office as a way to pursue business by other means, just as their campaign donations are far from altruistic, and a pretty strong relationship exists between an industry's donations and getting a favorable outcome on legislation that effects them.

Another odd twist on this story was how they described Romney's business experience, as doing ''business turnaround as a management consultant.''

Isn't that a bit like calling a cannibal as doing health turnaround as a weight loss consultant?

NPR and Public Radio International do the public a disservice when they practice historical revision like this, and making conservative epic catastrophe that which shall not be mentioned.

Gingrich doubles down on France Bashing, says he can't find France on a globe

Newt Gingrich knows his campaign is in desperate straits after his loss in Florida,  but polling data shows Republican voters were favorably impressed by ad slamming Mitt Romney for speaking French.

In states with upcoming primaries, Gingrich will run an ad taking the anti-French theme even further, appearing himself with a globe in his hands and saying, "Unlike Mitt Romney, I not only don't SPEAK French, I can't find it on a globe."

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's campaign got an early copy of the ad and plans to go even further than Gingrich and say their candidate is uncertain of the very existence of France.

"If people want to believe in some theory of France because they read it in a book or heard it from some atheist humanist gay college professor, I can't stop them--but I can tell them they're wrong."

Santorum says that France was made up by elitists in New York City as a utopia of wine drinking, mass transportation, and the metric system, to bolster their own failed socialists ideas.

"If they can't back up their ideas with real places like Selma, Schenectady , or San Antonio, they should have the dignity to admit their ideas don't work rather than appeal to some fantasyland "France."

Santorum said that if France did exist, that like other non-English speaking countries, it would pose a grave existential threat to the United States since they may be using their foreign language to plan terrorist or conventional military attacks on the US.

"This is why we need a military larger than the rest of the world combined," Santorum added.  "We have no way of knowing what they are saying in their godless, subhuman 'languages.'"

When asked about the success of the Gingrich ad and further efforts in that direction by Gingrich and Santorum, former Massachusettes governor Mitt Romney said that just because he publicly spoke French once does not mean he supports or denies the existence of France.

PIC: put a little Occupy in every letter to Congress

I've heard from several sources that for every letter a congressman or senator receives, they figure there are ten people who feel the same way but are too lazy to write.  I think there might be an easy way to convince them that quite a few more than ten agree with you.

For example, look at the two letters below with the exact same text.

Which is more likely to put the fear of God (or more accurately, the fear of real democracy) into the hearts of our profoundly corrupt legislators?

 

click to see full-sized

I might be overly optimistic, but if you choose your words and issues carefully, the letter on the right might convince a corrupt politician that you don't represent ten people, you represent 99% of the people.

There are a lot of images of the Guy Fawkes or V for Vendetta mask online--find one you like and add it to a letter to local tool of Wall Street posing as your elected representative.  

Let them know you see behind THEIR mask.

Condoleezza Rice on Bush Poison Scare

It was just a few weeks after 9/11 when then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice received an alarming message from Vice President Dick Cheney: President Bush may have been fatally poisoned.

She later found out that the president had gone to the White House kitchen for a snack, but the entire kitchen staff was in a meeting, so he began looking through cupboards and cabinets for  himself.

Cheney found him lying on the floor unconscious, his clothing stained with amonia and bleach-scented cleaners, which he feared the president ingested, thinking they were alcoholic beverages since he would be unable to read the labels.

The president was rushed to secure emergency room in the White House basement where his stomach was pumped.

Rice said the story had a happy ending.  Bush had apparently found a bottle of peppermint schnapps, drank the whole thing and spilled some on his shirt.

Not wanting to take the time to go back to his room and have the valet change his shirt for him, he tried to remove the stain himself with various kitchen cleaners and declining coordination until he blacked out from the schnapps.

"We learned an important lesson about the president's security that day," Rice said.  "We had to be prepared for every contingency."

She said Vice President Cheney supervised the installation of child-proof locks on all liquor cabinets and cleaning supplies cupboards throughout the White House and even tested them by watching the president try to open them.

The only damage done to the president was some scrapes on his face from his fall that were not explained to the public at the time.

"If we had told people what had happened, the president's life would have been at risk every time we traveled, simply by terrorists disabling child-proof locks on cleaning supplies. The public's right to know was outweighed by the president's safety.

friendly advice for centrist Obama supporters

 You are doing a piss poor job of convincing progressives to reelect Obama.

I believed you guys were actually Republican trolls until I heard the same words coming out of the mouths of top Obama aides and in only slightly milder form out of the mouths of the president and VP himself.

Does that persuade you and make you want to keep reading?

I didn't think so.

So why do you repeatedly insult the progressive majority of Democrats to try to keep them in the Obama tent?

I am not 100% pleased with Obama, but I will be voting for him again. Your efforts mostly make me feel like an idiot for doing so.

If you sincerely want to help Obama win reelection, here's some tips that might help you warm up the base.

Enough with the insults. You know what I'm talking about--calling anyone who criticizes Obama from the left ''far left'' (going as far as to say we are as bad as the far right), ''the professional left,'' ''hopeless idealists,'' and perhaps most aggravatingly ''Obama haters.'' That last one is just fucking lazy. You borrowed it from the Bush PR team.

Stop being crybabies. When you come to a discussion board, expect that people are going to criticize your guy as well as praise him. If you want undiluted praise, go to Obama's campaign website. If you come to a site like this expect to have to defend some of his actions and do so as if talking to your peers not your children.

Retire some of these talking points:

• You don't understand the process--it requires compromise. Actually, we understand that perfectly well. What we don't understand is why the president we elected to pursue Democratic policies gives away half the pie before negotiations even start and then gives up even more to make a deal. That would make some kind of sense once Republicans took over the House, but Obama did this even when Democrats had majorities in both chambers. Either honestly explain why he did this or just leave it alone.
  
  Most of us also notice that this isn't the way the GOP negotiates, regardless of whether they hold the White House or either chamber of Congress. They start with proposals that are clearly conservative, excoriate the Democrats, and then grudgingly compromise at the end of negotiations (and sometimes not even then).
• Obama has to be president of ALL Americans. Again, this one is an insult to our intelligence. We understand that he has to be president of ALL Americans, but we hold elections to decide what policies we want our president pursue. A solid majority of Americans thought they elected a Democratic president, not one who rarely mentions the name of his own party and blames it as much as the opposition that blocks everything and tries to destroy popular, effective programs, and not one who thinks every proposal has to include at least 50% Republican content. The Republicans certainly don't play that way when they take office, and even if they did, that would mean our vote would be meaningless since either party would do the same thing. With just the Democrats doing it, we essentially have a choice being 100% GOP policies or just 50% plus, which is barely a choice at all. So stow this shit.
  
  
• Any Republican will be WORSE. progressives seem to know this better than you or Obama does. If they are so bad, stop agreeing with them and letting them set the agenda, as your points about process and bipartisanship prove.
• Obama will be more progressive in his second term. Maybe FDR did that, but no president in my lifetime has. Bill Clinton was doing well to hold onto office and like Obama agreed with the GOP policies far too often. For good or ill, you have to run on what Obama has actually done (and not just the nice things he has said or will say during the campaign.

That brings me to the one thing you guys do well, the list of Obama's accomplishments. Even your presentation there has room for improvement though.

• Edit the list for a progressive audience. The catfood commission, the Afghanistan surge, and certainly the recent debt ceiling deal are not things you want to brag about with a progressive audience.
• Emphasize the radical and confrontational rather than incremental and bipartisan. So for example with health care reform, instead of talking about the market based exchanges and ''cost controls,'' the latter meaning controlling costs for insurance companies, talk about what the reform did to help the average American and bring insurance companies and big pharma to heel.
• Give it to people in chunks instead of the big dump. Focus especially on progressive moves that aren't getting a lot of MSM coverage, like working to get Medicare Part D to negotiate drug prices.

There are a couple of points that you also avoid mentioning, like why Obama started with an economic team that included so many of the architects of our financial collapse, and why he lets firms like Goldman Sachs pick their regulators instead of picking their cellmates in the Federal pen.

Another area where you need to address progressive concerns is K-12 education. I'm glad Obama gave schools money to keep them from laying off teachers, but a lot of us who care about kids have trouble trusting him on this issue when he hired an education secretary who right wingers praise for his union-busting, mass firing of teachers, emphasis on repetitive standardized testing and privatized charter schools, all ''reforms'' backed by billionaire dilettantes rather than trained educators.

The problem with Obama's approach to Wall St, education, trade, and other aspects of foreign policy is that it is top down rather than bottom up--he appears to talk to almost exclusively the wealthy and largely does what they ask, rather than looking at the wishes of average Americans, who would like to see Wall Street subject to the rule of law and suffer the same kind of consequences a middle class or poor person would if they intentionally caused as much damage, and would like to have safe public schools that borrow the best practices of private schools, rather than privatizing public schools so our tax dollars can be siphoned off in profits and teachers treated like interchangeable burger flippers.

You must address these concerns if you want to get progressives in the tent, and address them in the way that Bruno Bettelheim laid out in his essay ''The Victim.'' He told about how as a concentration camp inmate he needed to get an SS guard's approval to get medical treatment for frostbite. He had to make his case to someone who had no sympathy, all the power, and a gun. So far, you guys have been arguing more like the guard than the inmate.

FIRE Def. Sec. Panetta for threat to military retirement

It appears that when the current administration talks about cutting defense, they don't mean cutting endless wars, or corrupt contracts with connected corporations--they want to privatize (which means give to Wall Street) the troops pensions. At least that's what Secretary of Defense Leon Pannetta said recently at National Defense University citing a plan by an advisory board of corporate suits.
 
It would be no surprise if the Republicans proposed this, given their constant schemes to undermine and privatize Social Security, but if Obama and Democrats in Congress embrace and push for this, there would be no surer sign that care more about obeying Wall Street than winning elections.

The ''reform'' would change military retirement from a guaranteed amount based on rank and available immediately when they retire after 20 or 30 years of service to a 401K type plan than wouldn't be available until they are 60. One military group did the math and it would end up costing an E-7 $1.6 MILLION over the course of their retirement, an 85% cut.

This is a classic corporate move on a couple of levels: reducing and/or stealing employees pensions, and by saying currently serving troops would be spared the change is a standard union-busting move--divide and conquer future vs. current employees.

That Obama's Secretary of Defense even mentioned this other than to tear it to shreds destroys one of the things many progressive Democrats took pride in during the Bush years: Republicans give lip service to supporting the troops, but Democrats supported them in ways that mattered most to the troops, with VA funding, strengthening the GI Bill and the like.

That might have been why troops donated to Obama six to one over McCain in 2008 (besides the mistaken impression that he was anti-war).

This shoots that advantage in the face.

Pragmatically,this is not just an insult to the troops, but it will make it even easier for mercenary companies to lure highly trained troops out of the military with their big paydays. That training cost taxpayer money, and the longer they stay in the military, the better return we get on our investment in them. When they join mercenary companies, we end up paying even more for the services of someone we paid to train in the first place.

This is not just my opinion, but when a similar ''reform'' was attempted in the 80's, the Pentagon had to plead to get it reversed because so many people were leaving the military.

If Democrats in Congress and the White House want to cut military spending, fine. Let them do it by ending the wars, and taking our troops off oil reserve hostile takeover and pipeline (and poppy field) protection duty (or at least making the oil company assholes actually pay for the service).

Panetta should publicly apologize for publicly even entertaining this idea. If he does not, the right wing talking point about Democrats not supporting the troops will sadly be true. If he won't apologize and condemn the idea, he should be fired.

Tell Obama, your senators, and you congressman exactly that.